Archive

cylonlover writes “Traditionally, thin-film solar cells are made with rigid glass substrates, limiting their potential applications. Flexible versions do exist, although they require special production techniques and/or materials. Now, however, scientists from Stanford University have created thin, flexible solar cells that are made from standard materials – and they can applied to just about any surface, like a sticker. The cells have been successfully applied to a variety of both flat and curved surfaces – including glass, plastic and paper – without any loss of efficiency. Not only does the new process allow for solar cells to applied to things like mobile devices, helmets, dashboards or windows, but the stickers are reportedly both lighter and less costly to make than equivalent-sized traditional photovoltaic panels. There’s also no waste involved, as the silicon/silicon dioxide wafers can be reused.”

thomst writes “Tim Wogan reports that chemical engineer Zhenan Bao of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and her team have increased the conductivity of a self-healing polymer by incorporating nickel atoms. The polymer they have produced is sensitive to applied forces like pressure and torsion (twisting) because such forces alter the distance between the nickel atoms, changing the electrical resistance of the polymer. Their work is published online in the November 1 issue of Nature Nanotechnology (abstract here, full article paywalled). Now Bao and her team are working on making the polymer more flexible.”

thomst writes “Tim Wogan reports that chemical engineer Zhenan Bao of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and her team have increased the conductivity of a self-healing polymer by incorporating nickel atoms. The polymer they have produced is sensitive to applied forces like pressure and torsion (twisting) because such forces alter the distance between the nickel atoms, changing the electrical resistance of the polymer. Their work is published online in the November 1 issue of Nature Nanotechnology (abstract here, full article paywalled). Now Bao and her team are working on making the polymer more flexible.”

New submitter Lluc writes “MIT and Harvard have started a new online education partnership called edX, an ‘open-source technology platform to deliver online courses.’ They plan to offer classes starting in Fall 2012. Perhaps this nonprofit venture is a better method for online education than Udacity, the startup created by Stanford professors after their wildly successful free online course offerings.” Fellow new submitter alexander_686 sent in a link to the edX FAQ, and adds: “Harvard and MIT are launching edX with 60 million dollars to offer ‘low fee’ online classes. No word yet on classes offered or who will be teaching. No college credit but certificates will be offered. … I hope low cost means low cost. (Under $25). I have really enjoyed the Stanford University free online classes.”

Zothecula writes “A throwback to early 20th century aviation may hold the key to eliminating the sonic boom — at least according to researchers at MIT and Stanford University. Strongly reminiscent of biplanes still in use today, the researcher’s concept supersonic aircraft introduces a second wing which, it is claimed, cancels the shockwaves generated by objects near or beyond the sound barrier.”

cylonlover writes “With the wait still on for a miniaturization ray to allow some Fantastic Voyage-style medical procedures by doctors in submarines, tiny electronic implants capable of traveling in the bloodstream show much more promise. While the miniaturization of electronic and mechanical components now makes such devices feasible, the lack of a comparable reduction in battery size has held things back. Now engineers at Stanford University have demonstrated a tiny, self-propelled medical device that would be wirelessly powered from outside the body, enabling devices small enough to move through the bloodstream.”

Glassmap launches today. Interesting name, right? It aptly describes a touchscreen map app. Co-founder Geoffrey Woo says the name is inspired by even more futuristic interfaces. For now, it’s an app that persistently shares your location with your friends in the background. But it aspires to let you “point at them, see what they’re seeing, jump into their context.” Glassmap is for knowing where your friends are and how long they’ve been there.

It uses Facebook log-in, and it’s on iPhone and Android, so it’s more widely available than Apple’s Find My Friends. It also shares location passively, so it’s more… let’s say intimate… than Facebook Messenger, which just lets you drop a pin when you send a message. Glassmap arose on a college campus, a community especially willing to trade privacy for social benefits. Will the general public adopt it? Well, remember how Facebook started?

The Glassmap team thinks check-ins have peaked. It’s too much effort with not enough reward to manually share locations, and the resolution isn’t high enough. Check-ins are just sparse dots on a map. Glassmap wants to track its willing users constantly.

They’re not alone here. Google Latitude is a competitor, as is an older app called Loopt. But while under YCombinator’s wing, Glassmap built its own technology, which solves one of the two problems it faces.

The technical problem with persistent location thus far has been battery life. Glassmap’s conservative estimate, based on the iPhone, is that location sharing drains 5% of battery per hour. Glassmap spent much of its YCombinator time building its own technology, called Relay, which they say drains only 0.5% per hour, an order-of-magnitude improvement.

But the social problem might be the greater challenge. Not many iPhone users are using Find My Friends. Where’s the evidence that people want to keep up with people’s location constantly?

Glassmap was conceived at Stanford University, and 10% of Stanford undergrads are now using it. It has since rolled out to 10 other colleges, and Woo says it’s going well. A campus is a natural place for an app like this. “We just wanted to know where are friends were, where our roommates were, where the parties were,” Woo says.

He also mentions families or small, tight-knit groups of friends as potential use cases. “I want my five best friends to know where I am,” Woo says.

Maybe it sounds creepy now, but Facebook sounded creepy at first, too, while it took off like wildfire on college campuses. Maybe college is a good incubator. This app is still in the incubator stage, too. The user interface is not ready to change the world, but maybe the core concept is.

Most social media apps are narcissistic, asking users to intentionally broadcast themselves as if everyone cares. Glassmap shares what you’re up to from your pocket, with the screen locked. Is this a whole new paradigm or just a campus fad? Share your impressions in the comments.

judgecorp writes “Researchers at Stanford University have invented a battery material that could allow batteries to go through 400,000 charging cycles instead of the 400 or so which today’s Li-ion batteries can manage. Among the uses could be storing energy to even out the availability of renewable sources such as sun and wind.” Adds a story at ExtremeTech, “The only problem is, a high-voltage cathode (-) requires a very low-voltage anode (+) — and the Stanford researchers haven’t found the right one yet; and so they haven’t actually made a battery with this new discovery.”

Students will get about two hours of video content per week, though broken up into chunks of about 12 minutes (or smaller). They’ll also get quizzes from the videos and standalone quizzes, as well as programming assignments.

Here’s the description of the course:

Students will learn how to reason about the security of cryptographic constructions and how to apply this knowledge to real-world applications. The course begins with a detailed discussion of how two parties who have a shared secret key can communicate securely when a powerful adversary eavesdrops and tampers with traffic. We will examine many deployed protocols and analyze mistakes in existing systems. The second half of the course discusses public-key techniques that let two or more parties generate a shared secret key. We will cover the relevant number theory and discuss public-key encryption, digital signatures, and authentication protocols. Towards the end of the course we will cover more advanced topics such as zero-knowledge, distributed protocols such as secure auctions, and a number of privacy mechanisms. Throughout the course students will be exposed to many exciting open problems in the field.

A background in discrete probability is also said to be helpful. If you want a free course in crypt at your leisure, this sounds like a great option.

Boneh is the head of the applied cryptography group at Stanford, and has focused on applications of cryptography to computer security. He’s editor of the Journal of Cryptography and the Journal of the ACM.

Students will get about two hours of video content per week, though broken up into chunks of about 12 minutes (or smaller). They’ll also get quizzes from the videos and standalone quizzes, as well as programming assignments.

Here’s the description of the course:

Students will learn how to reason about the security of cryptographic constructions and how to apply this knowledge to real-world applications. The course begins with a detailed discussion of how two parties who have a shared secret key can communicate securely when a powerful adversary eavesdrops and tampers with traffic. We will examine many deployed protocols and analyze mistakes in existing systems. The second half of the course discusses public-key techniques that let two or more parties generate a shared secret key. We will cover the relevant number theory and discuss public-key encryption, digital signatures, and authentication protocols. Towards the end of the course we will cover more advanced topics such as zero-knowledge, distributed protocols such as secure auctions, and a number of privacy mechanisms. Throughout the course students will be exposed to many exciting open problems in the field.

A background in discrete probability is also said to be helpful. If you want a free course in crypt at your leisure, this sounds like a great option.

Boneh is the head of the applied cryptography group at Stanford, and has focused on applications of cryptography to computer security. He’s editor of the Journal of Cryptography and the Journal of the ACM.